Year: 2019

PACKER AND SONS is a new Australian play by Tommy Murphy. It is a play that focuses on the men of the Packer dynasty. Sir Frank, Kerry, Clyde and James. We meet Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch – another Australian power merchant family. And wheeler-dealer Jodie Rich – a failed power interloper. No women appear in this two and a half hour saga – is it that their invisibility or silence is a tacit wink that they are consenting agents to the world about them? Silence is Consent? On a bare stage, Design, Set and Costume, by Romaine Harper, supported peripherally…

A large screen at the back of the Concert Hall stage is covered with a projected photograph of Ms Gadsby and her dog Douglas (a large poodle). It is Douglas that has inspired this new show, tells Ms Gadsby – well, new to Sydney for it has already had a showing in Adelaide in March, then Melbourne and has toured to some cities in the USA. In 2018 Ms Gadsby became an internet star with the release of a performance of NANETTE on NETFLIX, which has received an international critic rating of 100% and has been acclaimed as ‘ground breaking’.…

Red Line, under the Artistic Directorship of Andrew Henry, after a Director had to withdraw from the project of a production of KRAPP’S LAST TAPE, by Samuel Beckett, due for performance at the Old Fitz, in late November, after consulting with the actor already engaged, Jonathan Biggins, reached out to Gale Edwards, to see whether she was available at this short notice to take on the task. She had just returned from Directing two one act operas for YARRA VALLEY OPERA: THE CORONATION OF POPPEA (1643), by Monteverdi, and in contrast, on the same program, a Children’s opera for discerning…

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE is a musical adaptation, by James Lapine and William Finn, of the 2006 film, that won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Michael Arndt, with a stellar ensemble cast that included Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Alan Arkin and introducing Abigail Breslin. The film became a ‘cult’ hit. The musical originated in San Diego, in California in 2011, and evolved later on Off-Broadway in 2013. James Lapine has written libretti for musicals: SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE (1984), INTO THE WOODS (1987), FALSETTOS (1992), and PASSION (1994). William Finn’s most successful…

Oscar Wilde’s DE PROFUNDIS, performed by Paul Capsis, a theatrical event not to be missed. So, a group of friends (from the local neighbourhood around the theatre) booked seats and had some food at the Hotel restaurant and eagerly entered the theatre. DE PROFUNDIS (Latin: from the depths), the title created by his most devoted friend Robert Ross when it was published in 1905, five years after Wilde’s death, is, possibly, the last writing by Oscar Wilde. He wrote it toward the end of his imprisonment in Reading Gaol,(having been found guilty of Gross Indecency), between January and March, 1897.…

THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE was the debut play, from the Irish/English writer Martin McDonagh. There followed a plethora of stunning successful companions to his stage repertoire which audiences looked keenly to see. In Sydney we were impressed with mainstage productions of THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE (1996), THE CRIPPLE OF INNISHMAAN (1997), THE LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE (2001). Elsewhere in the Fringe theatres, A SKULL IN CONNEMARA (1997), THE LONESOME WEST (1997), THE PILLOWMAN (2003), and regular revivals of the Mainstage exhibits arrived. And of course his film repertoire: IN BRUGES (2008), SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS (2012) and THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING,…